The Holbrook News

About this collection

The Holbrook News commenced publication in 1909, with Sidney Sapp serving as the paper's first editor. Initially a Republican platform, the paper became Democratic in 1929 and later changed again to Independent according to Estelle Lutrell's Newspapers and Periodicals of Arizona: 1859-1911. William H. Lyon quotes Sapp's axiom for the growth of Holbrook in Those Old Yellow Dog Days: Frontier Journalism in Arizona: 1859-1912. He declares, "Let us all boost one more year and then see the results. It [Holbrook] will be a town of 1,000 people, another railroad, the largest sawmills in Arizona and the wealthiest county in our grand state. BOOST."

The Holbrook News continued with several editor and title changes. Subsequent editors of the paper included the Braxton's; first G. M. Braxton from 1915 until August 8, 1919, followed by his wife, from August 15, 1919 until June 4, 1920. Oil was the new economic boon for Holbrook at this time, and the News and other local papers devoted plenty of space to it. When the Hopi Oil Company "spudded in the first well" according to an article by Erik Berg titled "Big Boom Predicted: Oil Exploration and Speculation in Northern Arizona 1900-1930" in the Spring 2000 Journal of Arizona History, the Holbrook News was there to cover it. Many new oil companies were emerging, and Berg states that too much publicity became a challenge that the newspapers had to address. With efforts and money aimed at the war in Europe, journalists had to be cautious of not over-promoting the current state of petrol in Holbrook. On November 22, 1918, Berg writes that the Holbrook News reported, "Arizona has had one experience with fake oil promoters and unscrupulous managers...misrepresentations either as to development, number of companies operating, the prospects, and the finding of oil are damaging and non-productive of any good." After many hopes and misleading ventures over the next few years the oil boom proved in fact to be a bust, as several of the newly formed companies fell into lawsuits and went bankrupt.

The last noted title of the paper was Holbrook Tribune-News [LCCN: sn94052374] which began publication February 16, 1923, with Editor V. P. Richards, according to Lutrell's Newspapers and Periodicals of Arizona: 1859-1911.